"Baxter, Stephen - On The Orion Line" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baxter Stephen)

It was SOP, standard operating procedure, and I was impressed. You’ve just come out of all
the chaos of the destruction of the Brightly and the crash of the yacht, a frenzy of activity.
Now you have to give your body a chance to adjust to the new environment, to the sounds and
smells and sights.

Only here, there was nothing to smell but my own sweat and piss, nothing to hear but my
ragged breathing. And my arm was hurting like hell.

To occupy my mind I concentrated on getting my night vision working. Your eyes take a
while to adjust to the darkness–forty-five minutes before they are fully effective–but you are
already seeing better after five. I could see stars through the chinks in the wiry metallic brush
around me, the flares of distant novae, and the reassuring lights of our fleet. But a Ghost ship
is a dark place, a mess of shadows and smeared-out reflections. It was going to be easy to get
spooked here.

When the ten minutes were done, Academician Pael started bleating, but Jeru ignored him and
came straight over to me. She got hold of my busted arm and started to feel the bone. "So,"
she said briskly. "What’s your name, tar?"

"Case, sir."

"What do you think of your new quarters?"

"Where do I eat?"

She grinned. "Turn off your comms," she said.

I complied.

Without warning she pulled my arm, hard. I was glad she couldn’t hear how I howled.

She pulled a canister out of her belt and squirted gunk over my arm; it was semi-sentient and
snuggled into place, setting as a hard cast around my injury. When I was healed the cast
would fall away of its own accord.

She motioned me to turn on my comms again, and held up a syrette.

"I don’t need that."

"Don’t be brave, tar. It will help your bones knit."

"Sir, there’s a rumor that stuff makes you impotent." I felt stupid even as I said it.

Jeru laughed out loud, and just grabbed my arm. "Anyhow it’s the First Officer’s, and he
doesn’t need it any more, does he?"

I couldn’t argue with that; I accepted the injection. The pain started ebbing almost
immediately.